Windows 10 Pro version 1709 running on a Dell XPS 8900 w 24Gb RAM.
I am unable to turn on Network Sharing. I suspected that the Defender Firewall was preventing it.
If I turn off Windows Defender Firewall, it will turn itself back on.
If I try
netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="Network Discovery" new enable=Yes
…it says "No rules match the specified criteria"
These dependent services are running.
DNS Client
Function Discovery Resource Publication
SSDP Discovery
UPnP Device Host
Within Windows Firewall Advanced Settings, there are predefined rules available. If I add the predefined "Network Discovery" rules, they appear for about a minute and then they are removed without me doing anything. Tres weird!
Now: If I go into the registry and turn off the Firewall, reboot, then the Firewall does not turn on, and I can turn on Network Discovery. Yea! But I then cannot turn the Defender Firewall back on. I have to change the registry manually again, but when I reboot, I'm back to where Network Discovery is turned off and I can't turn it on.
I've tried everything that was outlined here:
Force turn on file and printer sharing
I've turned off as many services and background processes as I can manage, but nothing seems to affect this behavior.
If I manage to use the "old" Control Panel, I can briefly turn off the Private Firewall, and when it's off, then sharing is allowed and I can click on "Network" in Explorer and see everything. But after a few minutes, the firewall is automagically turned back on, and I lose my sharing again. If I try to add in the pre-defined Network Discovery rules, it immediately turns itself back on.
I have not been able to get my Workstation service to start and I'm still trying to narrow that down. The drivers that are dependencies can't be re-registered, and I'm not sure what to do about that. (SFC /SCANNOW turns up without any issues.)
I'm seriously considering completely turning off the Defender Firewall.
Any other suggestions I haven't tried?
Best Answer
I had the same issue. this seems to have started with the latest MS update releases. My pc was a newly built system, so there is nothing on it except ms office.
I had to disable Sm firewall and it seems to have solved the problem. My issue was how the firewall was enabled after i had turned it off. I have an external firewall so I don't use the windows 10 firewall.